The Real Blogger Status

The Stats "Audience" page is now showing a mysterious entry, in the "Pageviews by Countries" list, for some blogs. The list of the top 10 most active countries, for the "Now", "Day", "Week", and / or "Month" lists, for some blogs, includes a non country name - "Unknown Region". The "Unknown Region" entry appears to be associated with a second Stats oddity, a monochromatic "Pageviews by Countries" map. This oddity is causing some concern, in various forum discussions . Where one would hope to see a familiar Stats multi-shaded Audience map, with various countries displayed in differing shades of green or black, some blog owners are seeing a monochromatic pale green display. The monochromatic display appears to be accompanied by the mysterious "Unknown Region" entry, in the countries list. I am examining the Stats "Audience" page, for this blog - in different time range...

With the pre 2016 Followers gadget, the Followers population for a blog was managed through an Options link on the Followers gadget . This required the blog owner to sign into the Followers gadget, to access the Options link. Authentication - and an owner specific Options menu - is no longer a pert of the Followers gadget. It is possible to Block Followers, from a blog - the option is just not part of the Followers gadget, any more.

Blog owners have been trying to block tracking their own Stats pageviews, for a few years. This option has long been unusable, for blogs published to custom domains . Recently, Blogger Engineering updated the option - and the dashboard page with the link.

Almost 2 years ago, motion picture actor Paul Walker and Roger Rojas decided to joyride, take a spin , in suburban Los Angeles California. What followed was $500,000 + destruction, at speed exceeding twice the posted 45 MPH. Driven in an industrial / office complex , the street legal race car - his buddy Roger at the wheel - left the road, and wrapped itself around a tree. It takes money to own, and to race, a super car - like a Porsche Carrera GT, that took Paul's life. It takes no money, however, to own a super web application - like a Blogger blog.

Not every blog, that gets readers - or pageview counts - is going to get comments. We see the disappointment, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I have received over 2,000 page views, but only close friends comment. Is there a setting or something that makes sense as to why I'm not receiving comments? And yes, there are various settings, which may restrict your readers abilities to comment - but that may not be the only possible problem.

The Stats "Don't track ..." option continues to draw complaints. Various blog owners have recently complained, anew, that the previously reported low level problem is now affecting their blogs. The two problems, though having a common primary symptom, appear to have different victim populations. The previous problem seemed to primarily affect custom domain published blogs, this problem may be BlogSpot only. This problem, according to a majority of the blog owners reporting, appears to have started during the last two to three weeks. It may be wise, therefore, to treat this as a new problem.

This month, we have numerous reports of problems with the Popular Posts gadget, and its size being out of control. Some blog owners cannot get their gadgets to display as many as entries are selected - while others have more entries displayed, then are selected. And some report differing success with displaying "Last 7 days", or "Last 30 days", as opposed to "All time". One forum helper has suggested a CSS tweak, which may help in some cases - but not consistently.

Just as with a single owner blog, one would not want to count owner activity in Stats - with a team blog, one may not want to count team activity. Authors, like Administrators, need to use the option "Don't track my pageviews", to avoid Stats recording their activity as a visitor. Unfortunately, the "Don't track ..." setting wizard is part of the Stats dashboard page - and is accessible only to blog administrators.

Some blog owners report various discrepancies, and oddities, with Stats and its various components . A few owners find that the Popular Posts gadget, that supposedly will display any selected number (1 - 10) of the most popular posts for a blog during a given time period, is sometimes short the number selected. With only 6 posts displayed out of 8 posts selected, it is possible that the desired 8 posts may be displayed - if 10 posts are selected, and the display is refreshed. On the other hand, with only 9 posts displayed out of 10 posts selected, it's not possible to increase the selection to 11, to compensate for the "missing" post.

We see signs of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about Stats count adjustments. The number of page views for individual posts and total page views have dropped precipitously. It appears that Google is under reporting these page views, which of course results in less earnings for our website. This blog owner does not understand the effect of referer spam upon Stats - nor the separation of AdSense and Stats. Some blog owners think that they know what pageview counts are appropriate, for their blog - and are unhappy when Stats does not display counts that agree with their expectations.

Occasionally, we see a complaint about referer spam, from a known spam source, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue - but the spam entry is not in a Stats log. Some people are recently reporting referer spam source, in Google Analytics, StatCounter, and more. When I check my Google Analytics, I See traffic on my blog from porn sites! and Why do I see Russian spam, in my StatCounter logs? Why indeed? If referer spam is unique to Stats, because how Stats develops visitor activity counts , why would we see referer spam activity in Analytics, StatCounter, and other visitor logs? It's normal to ask questions - but when you ask the wrong questions, in the wrong places, you help contribute to your own problems.

Many people have multiple computers. That detail is becoming more and more normal, in the population in general, each year. I own 3 computers - actually, 5 (two of them run Windows XP, and are off line). So, I use my 3 computers - 2 Google ChromeBooks, and 1 smart phone (no, not a Nexus), for Blogger and other projects. Since I don't want Stats pageview counts, for this blog, affected by my browsing this blog, I logged in to Blogger as the owner, using the browser on each of my 3 computers - and selected the "Don't track your own pageviews" option. The "Don't track ..." option is set, in a cookie. Cookies are unique, to the browser where they are set. On a ChromeBook, with only 1 browser - Chrome - this detail is not so interesting. One computer - 1 browser - 1 user - 1 cookie.

One popular Stats related accessory, which displays pageview information to the public, is the "Popular Posts" gadget. Popular Posts identifies from 1 to 10 of the most popular posts in the blog, by comparing Stats pageview counts. Optional parts of the display of each post are a snippet of text, and an ever popular thumbnail photo. Like many Stats features, blog owners have found imaginative uses for "Popular Posts" - and overlook the limitations of the gadget. Both the dynamic nature of Stats, and the timing of the various pageview count recalculations, create confusion, when Popular Posts is examined.

Some blog owners want significant details, from Stats. How do I get all posts listed, with pageview counts? or How do I get a specific time period, from last month? or How do I filter out the bogus counts? Not everybody observes that Stats gives us specific details, based upon what's generally useful, or what is possible to keep, easily. Some details are not provided, because Stats provides details that are significant, in the right context. Other details are not provided, because they are not retained, from day to day (week to week, month to month, or year to year).

Some blog owners, having published their blog to their new custom domain, find that the Stats "Don't track my own pageviews" option has now stopped working - and their activity, on their blog, is being counted. Owners of custom domain published blogs, who consider their own activity to create significant inaccuracy in Stats figures, may not be pleased to discover Stats unable to ignore their activity - even if they did previously select the "Don't track ..." option. Finding it inconvenient to locate the misbehaving filter that prevents the Stats "Don't track" cookie from being installed on their browser, they will complain in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . We now see a possible workaround, for this problem.

One of the more perplexing problems, in Blogger owner / reader life, involves layered security issues , and filter changes. Many Blogger features are vulnerable to security filters. The ability to use Blogger commenting , the EU cookie advice banner won't display or won't go away, the infamous Reading List , the Blogger Stats "Don't track ..." option - all require cookies and scripts , that are subject to filtering.

Some blog owners like to validate their Stats displays, using third party visitor logs like StatCounter. Since Stats displays aggregated page view counts - not individual visitors - a blog owner will find many discrepancies between Stats and StatCounter. One observation might involve Stats indicating periods of no activity, where StatCounter shows an interesting visit. A visit, registered by StatCounter - but not by Stats - indicates an apparent problem with Stats. Or, so the blog owner might think.

Occasionally, we see odd questions about Stats, and the history of someone's blog (or maybe, the URL of someone's blog), in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . If I started my blog last year, why does my Stats display show pageviews from 2, or even 3, years ago? and If I rename my blog to a better URL, how do I carry the Stats numbers to the new URL? Neither blog owner shows an accurate understanding of the historical nature of Stats pageview counts.

Some blog owners don't understand why Stats displays show that no one is reading their latest post. I know that my most recent post is being read - but Stats shows pageviews, for that post, as 0! This owner does not understand the difference between main page, and post page, access. If you read this blog , without being interested in any particular post, you can access the main page. On the main page, and other index pages, you'll see anywhere from 10 to 15 carefully summarised , recently published, individual posts. Clicking on "Read more »", at the end of any of the summaries, you can read any complete article. This complete article, and others in this blog, is published as an individual post page - and summarised on index pages, using Jump Break. Not every blog owner uses Jump Break , to display the posts. Some blog owners publish complete blog articles, in each index page post. Depending upon how any blog is designed, some readers may click on a link, to ...

Problems with the Stats "Don't track ..." option , in general, are not new. Ever since Blogger added that option to Stats, years ago, it's been a problem for some blog owners. Sometimes, the problem is individual, other times (as this year) the problems are seen by more people. The most common problems with the "Don't track" option, when selected by the blog owners, involve cookies, hosted by various browsers - and interpreted by Blogger scripts. Cookies and scripts are misunderstood features in Internet life . Some countries require websites, published by their citizens, to display disclaimers, warning readers that "This website drops cookies onto your computer!" - as if cookies are are part of an evil plot.